Balfarg is a
prehistoric
Prehistory, also called pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the first known use of stone tools by hominins million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use o ...
monument complex in
Glenrothes,
Fife
Fife ( , ; ; ) is a council areas of Scotland, council area and lieutenancy areas of Scotland, lieutenancy area in Scotland. A peninsula, it is bordered by the Firth of Tay to the north, the North Sea to the east, the Firth of Forth to the s ...
,
Scotland
Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...
. It is protected as a
scheduled monument
In the United Kingdom, a scheduled monument is a nationally important archaeological site or historic building, given protection against unauthorised change.
The various pieces of legislation that legally protect heritage assets from damage, visu ...
. With the development of Glenrothes new town in the latter half of the 20th Century an adjacent residential area was developed around the complex carrying the same name.
Balfarg Henge
The Balfarg
henge
A henge can be one of three related types of Neolithic Earthworks (archaeology), earthwork. The essential characteristic of all three is that they feature a ring-shaped bank and ditch, with the ditch inside the bank. Because the internal ditches ...
, located at , is part of a larger prehistoric ceremonial complex. It contains the remnants of a
stone circle
A stone circle is a ring of megalithic standing stones. Most are found in Northwestern Europe – especially Stone circles in the British Isles and Brittany – and typically date from the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age, with most being ...
which has been partly reconstructed.
The Balfarg henge was excavated between 1977 and 1978 by
Roger Mercer prior to the development of a new housing estate, work which established that the two extant
standing stone
A menhir (; from Brittonic languages: ''maen'' or ''men'', "stone" and ''hir'' or ''hîr'', "long"), standing stone, orthostat, or lith is a large upright rock (geology), stone, emplaced in the ground by humans, typically dating from the Eur ...
s were part of a circle that stood within the henge. The two surviving specimens lined the north-west oriented entrance to the henge.
Within the diameter henge were found broken
Neolithic
The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...
pottery, burnt wood and bone which had been dumped on the site prior to the erection of a wide
timber circle of 16 wooden posts. Two especially large portal timbers stood on the west side of the circle. It is likely that the henge was built after these phases of activity.
Grooved ware pottery found in the
posthole
This page is a glossary of archaeology, the study of the human past from material remains.
A
B
C
D
E
F
...
s dates to around 2900 BC. Some of the vessels may have been used to hold black
henbane
Henbane (''Hyoscyamus niger'', also black henbane and stinking nightshade) is a poisonous plant belonging to tribe Hyoscyameae of the nightshade family ''Solanaceae''. Henbane is native to Temperate climate, temperate Europe and Siberia, and natu ...
(''Hyoscyamus niger'') which is a poison but also a powerful hallucinogen.
Five further concentric post rings had also been erected outside and inside the main wooden circle although these were made from narrower timbers and may have supported hurdling or a
palisade
A palisade, sometimes called a stakewall or a paling, is typically a row of closely placed, high vertical standing tree trunks or wooden or iron stakes used as a fence for enclosure or as a defensive wall. Palisades can form a stockade.
Etymo ...
.
Later during the site's use the timber circle was replaced by two
concentric stone circles, again with an entrance to the west and some time after this the henge was constructed. Around 1900 BC a pit was dug in the centre of the stone circles and in it was placed the body of a young man along with a flint knife and a handled
beaker.
Later excavation between 1983 and 1985 by Barclay and Russell-White demonstrated that there were scatters of earlier Neolithic pits round the Balfarg henge. These excavations also discovered a second henge, which surrounded a Neolithic timber mortuary enclosure. A second such timber structure lay just outside the henge, partly overlain by a complex of two burial cairns.
Nearby is the
Balbirnie Stone Circle, which is also part of the complex.
Balfarg housing estate
The Balfarg Henge now serves as a centre piece greenspace for the local area with modern housing developed in
crescents around the monument. A modern residential area which was started in the late 1970s and was later expanded over subsequent decades now surrounding the henge. Former traditional steadings and farm buildings within the area have also since been converted into housing and now form part of the larger modern estate. The streets in the original parts of the estate developed by the former Glenrothes Development Corporation were named after lochs in Scotland, for instance Affric Road and Tummel Road.
The Gilvenbank Hotel, Bar and Restaurant (formerly Jaguars (1982 to 1988) and The Snooty Fox (1988 to 2006)) is also located in the area close to Gilvenbank Park. Located adjacent to the hotel is the Balfarg care home. In 1995 a tradition left Balfarg when the local fete moved from the henge to nearby Gilvenbank Park. The Coul burn flows southeast through Balfarg on to Balbirnie Park and then joins the
River Leven further east near
Windygates.
Buses run every twenty minutes to and from Balfarg and the
Kingdom Shopping Centre in Glenrothes town centre. The area is in the catchment of
Pitcoudie Primary and St Pauls Roman Catholic Primary schools. High Schools Glenwood and Glenrothes High and St Andrews RC in Kirkcaldy have students from the area.
See also
*
Pitcairn House
*
Balbirnie House
References
*
Burl, A ''A Guide to the stone circles of Britain, Ireland and Brittany'', Yale, 1995
{{European Standing Stones
Archaeological sites in Fife
Stone Age sites in Scotland
Scheduled monuments in Fife
Areas in Scotland
Henges in Scotland
Glenrothes